China's Maoists

A bookshop manager in Beijing stands up for Bo Xilai

FAN JINGGANG's bookshop, Utopia, is not one the casual shopper will ever find. It occupies a small room on the sixth floor of a shabby office building (relocated from similar hard-to-find premises where your correspondent paid it a visit three years ago). Yet it, and a website of the same name also run by Mr Fan, are among the fountainheads of an ultra-left intellectual current that has become a striking feature of China's turbulent politics.

There is no evidence that the recently deposed party chief of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, ever gave explicit encouragement to the bookshop, the website or its network of Mao-loving supporters. But neither did he reject Utopia's adulation of him and his “Chongqing model” with its revival of “red culture” (quotations from Mao and revolutionary songs). Chongqing's government website carried a flattering reference to Utopia and its readers' “thirst for justice” in a comment submitted last year by a Chongqing citizen who also praised the work of the municipality's then police chief, Wang Lijun (who is now thought to be in custody in Beijing). The comment elicited a thankful reply from Chongqing's police, but has now been expunged (see here for a cached copy, in Chinese, on Google).

As Analects reported on March 23rd, Utopia has been among a handful of hard-left websites that have continued to sing Mr Bo's praises in spite of his political disgrace. This is unusually daring in a country where people are normally quick to conform to a change in the political mood. But with more than two weeks now having passed without any public explanation of the reasons for Mr Bo's dismissal, citizens can be forgiven for thinking that the struggle is not over. This is certainly Mr Fan's view. Clad in a dark Mao-jacket, seated at a table in the middle of his cramped bookshop, he describes what he sees as a conspiracy by America, the World Bank, think-tanks in Washington, DC and “traitors” at home to crush Mr Bo, the Chongqing model and the principle it upholds of big spending on welfare projects and nurturing of state-owned enterprises. Ordinary Chinese, he says, believe that rumours of corruption involving the Bo family and Mr Wang have been fabricated by “anti-China” forces and by the gangsters that Mr Wang was famous nationwide for locking up.

Mr Fan is particularly critical of the World Bank. He sees the publication in late February of a report, “China 2030”, by the bank and a Chinese government think-tank, the Development Research Centre, as part of a “step-by-step” plot to attack the Chongqing model and Mr Bo. The report's proposals for financial liberalisation and the scaling back of state-owned enterprises “harboured evil intentions”, says Mr Fan. His website has recently been replete with articles echoing such misgivings. Mr Fan says that since Mr Bo's dismissal on March 15th total page views on his website's articles relating to Chongqing and Mr Bo have more than doubled to over 10,000–evidence, he thinks, of public support for their views.

Mr Fan offers little evidence to back his claim of a plot. But they are worth taking seriously, at least as an insight into a strand of thinking in Chinese politics that ties together an array of forces, ranging from born-again Maoists to ultra-nationalists and hardline elements of the establishment itself. Utopia and like-minded websites such as Maoflag.net are the online inheritors of an orthodox tradition that traces its origins back to the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 when party hardliners founded journals extolling the virtues of old-style communism. The two leading ones were closed down in 2001 for going too far in their criticism of the party's embrace of capitalism. Utopia was founded two years later to keep up the cause. A new leadership that came to power in 2002 and 2003 has tolerated online Maoism (and in Mr Bo's case tapped into its readership for support), partly because it too has sought to distance itself from the Dickensian excesses of China's economic transformation.

Mr Fan, however, sees gloomy times ahead for people like him. He blames a “hostile attack” by unnamed “political forces” for the closure of his website and others like it for several days after Mr Bo was sacked. He fears that in the short term at least, China could “go astray” (Mao-ese for deviating further towards capitalism). The reason, he says, why China saw hardly any organised display of sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street movement is because people saw the Chongqing model as a portent of change for the better. Now he does not rule out large-scale unrest. “What's happened this year and future uncertainties are making people more worried”, he says, referring to leadership changes due to take place at the end of this year.

Mr Fan's bookshop, however, still peddles optimism. Shoppers are given red bags with which to carry their purchases. On them is a Mao quotation that begins: “The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system”. On the other side they say, clinging to hope, “Long live Chairman Mao”.

Mao is a great general but not a good leader. What people love about Mao are his early years between 30s and 50s where be brought order over chaos and instituted long needed reforms on land, education and woman's rights. Nobody in their right mind loves Mao's later years of 60s and 70s where he instituted crazy economic policies, murdered old friends and turned the common man against each other.
What Bo is trying to do is the later rather than the former. Bo is building on Mao's cult of personality to destroy in the institutions built up in the post Mao era. He turned people against each other so he gains more power. He kills those closest to him. And he dammed a wild life reservar to increase GDP. What he did looks good in the short term but will have catastrophic consequences in the long run.

I am a Chinese but I must say Mao is the most destructive figure in Chinese history. Under his rule, over 50 mn ppl died from unnatural forces. After 1949, no foreigners ever set their feet on Chinese territory but the amount of people died during 1949-1976 surpassed what the Japanese inflicted on China.
I delved deep into China's moder history, especially during 1956-1976. Mao's individual ambition and his illusion that he was being replaced by other open-minded leaders like Liu Shaoqi was the main reason that he launced the Cultural Revolution. What he did was not for the cause of China and Chinese people but only for his own selfish intention. He is evil.

We all can see the great progression China has made since Mao's death in 1976, freedom of speech though still limited to some extend . I personally don't want China to stray away back into the era when the most basic human rights can not be fullfilled. Mao was a great strategist, but not a good leader.

While I accept that people have a "right" to voice their opinions, his views and those advocated by the Chonqqing model are antiquated.

China is what it is today, because of the reform and opening of the economy. Chonqqing model is simply Voodoo Economics. Its not sustainable. Of course reforms have caused greater inequality in China, but China is no more unequal than Singapore. Given its size and diversity the level of inequality is tolerable. If you were to measure inequality across the EU, you would easily come up with measures of inequality that are similar to China.

Chongqing, deficits and debt levels make Greece like a teetotaler, and we have little Chinese red pioneers on this board thinking Bo Xilai did a good job. If the Chongqing model was applied across China, China would be Greece x1000 over.

"So here is a curious thing: since Bo Xilai's downfall, the international media has gone wild speculating on its causes, but few have mentioned the economic factor. The majority of English reports focus on Bo's attention-generating personal style that might have offended Beijing's top leaders. Behind the visible factors, however, is a hidden, and much more alarming, issue: Bo's Chongqing government had (still has) huge fiscal deficits. Premier Wen Jiabao, in his March14th press conference, emphasized controlling local government debt. This suggests that Chongqing's deficits likely played a big role in Beijing's assessment of Bo's performance.

A Chinese report shows that Chongqing's 2011 fiscal deficit was more than 100 billion yuan (roughly 16 billion in US dollar). This, a 30% of the year's fiscal revenue, may not look to be the worst, but deficits have been persistent throughout Bo's tenure. The highest – at 50% – occurred in 2009, the year the "crackdown on gangsters" campaign began. Mayor Huang Qifan was quoted as saying the deficits were to be balanced out by the central government. The talk of the town is that one motivation for Bo's crackdown was to confiscate private business money to fill the hole in his government spending."

Of course the Western press, wanting to sensationalize everything, don't go into much detail about Chongqing dreadful finances.

Bo Xilai would have been fired if not for his political connections, simply because he was a lousy administrator.

Its not what the reformers / ultra-left in the party think, but the silent majority of party technocrats. If you look at the Chongqing budget when Bo Xilai was running it was incurring deficits of 30-50%, which is astronomically high even by the standards of Chinese local governments. Which in my in opinion, not a very high bar.

Simply put, the Chongqing model is not sustainable. To most senior government officials in China, the main reason why the left is dangerous for China, is their economic prescriptions don't work, they didn't work in the 1960s, and they did not work in Chongqing today.

It is rather disheartening - and ominous for China's future development - that Mao's ghastly spectre still commands such respect within Chinese society. In hindsight, it is startlingly evident that he was a better conqueror than a ruler, and that China's current leadership is indeed headed in the right direction by continually chipping away at his legacy.

I was glad to see that Chairman's Mao's grandson Xinyu Mao attended the CPCC session. Perhaps, Chairman Mao (and the spirit of Zhengxing(or is it Feng?) Lei) still survives in the hearts of many Chinese, no matter where they live and work, rural or urban, Chongqing or Shanghai, hukou or dipiao. Sinicization of Marxist philosophy and of the periphery is proceeding at an alarming pace. CPCCC (Communist Party with Confuscion Chinese Characteristics), foundered on a sightseeing boat in Nanhu Lake 90 years ago, is the rareguard and the driver of the Revoluting Army of Workers and Peasants, united and salivating towards a harmonious society with Scientific Outlook, no longer singing "red songs", but instead collecting single malt spirits, opening-up Louis Vuitton handbags, Hermes belts (available at Shin Kong place and other respectable stores) and reverse-engineered stealth fighters for its future journey onto the unknown.
Why does China need to pretend it has an ideology? To control the masses?

Due to the inability of creating enough Tax Revenue in Towns and Provinces, the idea was to tax Housing& Property. After it past the NPC last year, the Beijing government
ordered Chongqing and Shanghai to create models of taxation.
Usually this is a very Conservative method of trying out a new law in a Country as big as China. Without going to deep into Ins and Outs Mr. Bo Xilai’s “Chongqing” Model became the one most Provinces and later all wanted to adopt and ratify.
The Chongqing Model was going to tax all Property owners, where the Shanghai Model was going to only start taxing New Buyers, so old rich Mandarins with 20 ore more Properties or houses bought some time ago would have avoided Taxes in the Future.
Bo Xilai’s Model is the winner and I don’t see why even the Media in the West is making
him a hard Left Maoist, as in his Model every simple earner like a Hairdresser or a Secretary could manage to buy a House in Chongqing.
What is wrong with that, was House ownership for everyone not Mrs Thatcher’s Idea as well ,is the Baroness now a Leftwing Maoist?
Perhaps and what I suspect, Mao Zedong was the Man for the People and only after the USA derailed prepaid Food for month to China it came to Famine and mass Starvation in Mao’s new Dynasty.
My Conclusion therefore; the World needs more Mao Zedong’s, Mrs Thatcher’s and
Bo Xilai’s ……

The funny thing is that I grew up with this crap. It went to such extreme that in my first English lesson we had to learn "Long live Chairman Mao", even before we learned the 26 letters.

That time was my worst memory, not because of the brainwashing which actually made you feel good, but because so many desperate beggars would come to our neighborhood and people could only help so little.

In a leaked secret memo, Kissinger has advised the Plutocrats on Capitol Hill to destroy the Chongqing Model. It seems that as long as there is injustice, Mao ideas will resonate louder and louder with the Occupiers, Dalits, Landless Peasants, Serfs, PIGS etc. wherever and whoever it may be.

This ultra-leftist can stil blah blah blah in China because it is safer to stay on the left in lieu on the right in today's China even after Bo is purged.

Website like Utopia can still advocate "Class Struggle" which means putting "traitor" Wen (the leftist technique of badmouthing anyone they don't like) in the plight of former PRC Chairman Liu Xiaoqi.

Utopia even advocates revival of Red Guard technique like encouraging groups of ignorat youngsters to hop on train to every town to BS about the merit of Collective Ownership.

But liberals like Liu Xiaobo merely talked about that China should evolve into a multi-party democracy (which Beijing supported in almost every country like Cambodia and East Timor by contributing in UN peace-keeping force so that those countries could hold elections) and got 11-year jail term.

However, Deng's famous motto in 1992 is that "We should be cautious about the rightist, but the main risk is posed from the leftists."

So why does CCP know that the leftists pose the main risk but still tolerate them to BS?

There is a reason why even though the foreign money keeps pouring into China, on the other hand, the Nouveau Riche keeps fleeing China with their money.

As Premier Wen said, Cultural Revolution is still haunting over China.

"Hey it is BS to make a comparison with EU, EU contains many poor and rich countries, of course it is easy to find inequality that are similar to China. Who do you want to fool!"

Why is it a BS. China is 2.5 times bigger than the EU in population. Guangdong is larger than Germany in terms of population. So it really should be compared with Germany. China with the whole of the EU. Its absurd to compare inequality in China with inequality in Belgium.

"For all the infrastructures he made, it is easy to see huge deficits and debt. But to compare Greece and ChongQing is laughable, you seem don't know how Greek daily life function? They don't have a efficient tax system, practically not many people pay tax, corruption is another BIG problem in Greece. Have you heard of death people still receiving pension!! "

What did he build exactly that other provinces did not build also? Someone else is financing those deficits (ie richer coastal provinces). 30-50% is very high. Yes some of it is through equalization payments from the central government. But Shanxi which is 30% poorer than Chongqing, has a deficit of under 20%. Did the Chongqing model make China what is it today. No it did not. Its private entrepreneurs in places like Jiangsu, Guangdong, Zhejiang that provide much of the initial growth in China. Unlike you, the senior leadership in Beijing realizes that.

The comparison still stands, ignorant one. Chongqing like Greece receives subsidies from somewhere else. Greece also built alot of infrastructure with EU funds. I guess you don't realize that. In the case of Greece its from Northern Europe, in the case of Chongqing its from the coastal provinces. Silly Chinese like you admire the Chongqing model, but does anyone admire Greece? Of course not.

What Bo Xilai is doing is no different than what many Western politicians are doing, spending his way to win popularity. At a national level it can't be sustained, because who is going to subsidize the Central Government !!! Maybe you can open break open your piggy bank and donate the money to China.